Alison Steele @ 25

One of my most popular posts, and one of my personal favorites, is also one of my oldest -- my fall 2007 post about the late great radio DJ Alison Steele, "The Night Bird."

Alison's hypnotic voice, her reassuring words, plus the great music she played, kept insomniac New Yorkers soothed and happy for many years. A bigtime talent in the era of the great radio DJs (the 1960s to '80s, even the early '90s), Alison was one of the few female DJs of the era, and one of the most beloved. She was also an influence on other radio talents, as NPR's Terry Gross has attested.

Alison died 25 years ago on September 27, 1995.

As I wrote earlier, I specifically remembering hanging out in a friend's dorm room during my freshman year of college, browsing the Internet which was still a new fangled contraption at the time that I was getting used to, and seeing this news. The idea of getting news outside of TV or the papers was relatively new, and seeing this post about her death shocked me -- not only was I learning about it in a then-unconventional way, but I had just  been listening to Alison a few months earlier, when I would wake up early to listen to the end of her show, just before Howard Stern hit the air. She was a part of my high school years, of a life that I had just left behind, and her death, in a way, ended that chapter of my childhood. And I was surprised at how sad I was by this, and how I would probably never hear another voice like her's again -- and, after 25 years, I haven't.

You can read my complete Alison Steel coverage here. But you should also check out her original obituary where she was, quite rightly, called a pioneer.

You may be gone, Alison, but never forgotten. Fly on!